The Triumph of John Kars Part 31

Dan only desired such custom. He possessed a hundred and one pleasant wiles for the loosening of the bank rolls of such custom. No man ever left his establishment after a brief stay without considerably less bulging pockets.

When Dan espied the entrance of John Kars from behind the gla.s.s part.i.tion, which divided his office from the elaborate entrance hall, he lost no time in offering a personal welcome. Kars was his greatest failure in Leaping Horse, just as Pap had had to admit defeat. That these two men had failed to attract to their carefully baited traps the richest man in the country, a man unmarried, too, a man whose home possessed no other attraction than that of a well-furnished apartment, was a disaster too great for outward lamentation.

But neither despaired, even after years of failure. Nor did they ever lose an opportunity. It was an opportunity at this moment.

"Glad to see you back, Mr. Kars." The small, smiling, dangerous Dan was the picture of frank delight. "Leaping Horse misses her big men.

Had a pleasant vacation?"

Kars had no illusions.

"Can't call a business trip a vacation," he said with a smile. "I don't reckon the North Pacific in winter comes under that heading either. Say, there's a boy stopping around here. Alexander Mowbray.

Is he in the hotel?"

Dan c.o.c.ked a sharp eye.

"I'll send a boy along," he said, pressing a bell. A sharp word to the youth who answered it and he turned again to the visitor.

"Guess you know most of these up-country folk," he said. "There's things moving inside. We're getting spenders in, quite a little. The city's asking questions. Mr. Mowbray's been here all winter, and he seems to think dollars don't cut ice beside a good time. I figger there's going to be a fifty per cent raise in the number of outfits making inside this season. There's a big talk of things. Well, it mostly finds its way into this city, so we can't kick any."

"No, you folks haven't any kick coming," Kars said amiably. This man's inquiries made no impression on him. It was the sort of thing he was accustomed to wherever he went in Leaping Horse.

At that moment a bell rang in the office, and Kars heard his name repeated by the 'phone operator.

"Ah, Mr. Mowbray's in," observed Dan, turning back to the office.

"Mr. Mowbray will be glad if you'll step right up, Mr. Kars." The 'phone clerk had emerged from his retreat.

"Thanks. What number?"

"Three hundred and one. Third floor, Mr. Kars," replied the clerk, with that love of the personal peculiar to his cla.s.s. Then followed a hectoring command, "Elevator! Lively!"

Kars stepped into the elevator and was "expressed" to the third floor.

A few moments later he was looking into the depressed eyes of a youth he had only known as the buoyant, headstrong, north-bred son of Allan Mowbray.

The change wrought in one brief winter was greater than Kars had feared. Dissipation was in every line of the half-dressed youth's handsome face, and, as Kars looked into it, a great indignation mingled with his pity. But his indignation was against the trader who had left the youth to his own foolish devices in a city whose morals might well have shamed an aboriginal. Nor was his pity alone for the boy. His memory had gone back to the splendid dead. It had also flown to the two loving women whose eyes must have rained heart-breaking tears at the picture he was gazing upon.

The boy thing out a hand, and a smile lit his tired features for a moment as he welcomed the man who had always been something of a hero to him. He had hastily slipped on his trousers and thrust his feet into shoes. His pajama jacket was open, revealing the naked flesh underneath. Nor could Kars help but admire the physique now being so rapidly prost.i.tuted.

"It's bully of you looking me up," Alec said, with as much cordiality as an aching head would permit.

Then he laughed shamefacedly. "Guess I'm dopey this morning. I sat in at 'draw' last night, and collected quite a bunch of money. I didn't feel like quitting early."

Kars took up a position on the tumbled bed. His quick eyes were busy with the elaborate room. He priced it heavily in his mind. Nor did he miss the c.o.c.ktail tray at the bedside, and the litter of clothes, clothes which must have been bought in Leaping Horse, scattered carelessly about.

"It don't do quitting when luck's running," he said, without a shade of censure. "A feller needs to call the limit--till it turns. 'Draw's'

quite a game."

Alec had had doubts when John Kars' name had come up to him. He had only been partially aware of them. It had been the working of a consciousness of the life he was living, and of the clean living nature of his visitor. But the big man's words dispelled the last shadow of doubt, and he went on freely.

"Say," he cried, enthusiasm suddenly stirring him, "I'm only just getting wise to the things I missed all these years. It gets me beat to death how a feller like you, who could come near buying the whole blamed city, can trail around the country half your time and the other dope around on a rough sea with the wind blowing clear through your vitals."

"It's cleaner air--both ways."

The boy flung himself on the bed with his back against the foot-rail.

He reached out and pressed the bell.

"Have a c.o.c.ktail?" he said. "No?" as Kars shook his head. "Well, I got to, anyway. That's the only kick I got coming to the mornings.

Gee, a feller gets a thirst. But who'd give a whoop for clean air?

I've had so much all my life," he went on, with a laugh. "I'm lookin'

for something with snap to it."

"Sure." Kars' steady eyes never changed their smiling expression.

"Things with snap are good for--a while."

"'A while'? I want 'em all the time. Guess I owe Murray a big lot.

It was him who fixed mother so she'd stake me, and let me git around.

I didn't always figger Murray had use for me. But he's acted fine, and I guess I--say, I ran short of money a while back, and when he came along down he handed me a bunch out of his own dip, and stood good for a few odd debts! Murray! Get a line on it. Can you beat it? And Murray figgers more on dollars than any feller I know."

"You never know your friends till you get a gun-hole in your stomach,"

Kars laughed. "Murray's more of a sport than you guessed. He certainly don't unroll easy."

The boy's face was alight with good feeling. He sat up eagerly.

"That's just how I thought," he cried. "I----" A knock at the door was followed by the entrance of a bell-boy with the c.o.c.ktail. Alec seized it, and drank thirstily.

Kars looked on. He gave no sign.

"That feller knows his job," he said, as the boy withdrew.

Alec laughed. He was feeling in better case already.

"Sure he does. A single push on that bell means one c.o.c.ktail. He generally makes the trip twice in the morning. But say, talking of Murray, one of these days I'm going to make a big talk with him and just tell him what I feel 'bout things. I've got to tell him I've just bin a blamed young fool and didn't understand the sort of man he was."

"Then you've had trouble with him--again?" Kars' question had a sudden sharpening in it. He was thinking of what Bill had told him.

"Not a thing. Say, we haven't had a crooked word since we quit the old Fort. He's a diff'rent guy when he gets away from his--store. No, sir, Murray's wise. He guesses I need to see and do things. And he's helped me all he knows. And he showed me around some dandy places before I got wise."

He laughed boisterously, and his laugh drove straight to the heart of the man who heard it.

Kars was no moralist, but he knew danger when he saw it, moral or physical. The terrible danger into which this youth, this foolish brother of Jessie, had been plunged by Murray McTavish stirred him as he had not been stirred for years. Women, gaming, drink. This simple, weak, splendid youth. Leaping Horse, the cesspool of the earth. A mental shudder pa.s.sed through him. But the acutest thought of the moment was of the actions of Murray McTavish. Why had he shown this boy "places"? Why had he financed him privately, and not left it to Ailsa Mowbray? Why, why, had he lied to Bill on the subject of a quarrel with Alec?

But these things, these thoughts found no outward expression. He had his purpose to achieve.

He nodded reflectively.

"Murray's got his ways," he said. "Guess we most have. Murray's ways mayn't always be our ways. They mayn't ever be. But that don't say a thing against 'em." He smiled. It was the patient smile of a man who is entirely master of himself. "Then Murray's got a kick coming to him, too. He's a queer figger, and he knows it and hates it. A thing like that's calculated to sour a feller some. I mean his ways."